


Follow Suit

by ArchaeopteryxDreams



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Childhood Friends, Fashion & Couture, Furry, Gen, Hospitalization, Male-Female Friendship, Spies & Secret Agents, injury from fire, strong woman in a suit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchaeopteryxDreams/pseuds/ArchaeopteryxDreams
Summary: Alcyone never thought his fashion design would be any real help to his best friend, Steele the newly minted secret agent. He was just happy to participate in getting Steele into the suit she looked so right in. But it turned out that Al's sloppy flaw in workmanship was why Steele made it out alive.(A friendship study in an anthropomorphic world.)
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Male Character





	Follow Suit

The two of them did everything together. Passed notes in middle school, and studied for college exams until the sun rose, and ordered pizzas with sausage on her half, anchovies on his. They graduated — police foundations for her, textile arts for him. And still, despite the sudden distance, they phoned and emailed, telling each other the smallest of secrets.

Alcyone was a kingfisher with a little weaverbird on his grandfather's side. He grew up surrounded by birds of his own feather. And if he had guessed who his best friend would be, he wouldn't have said a caracal — but she was a cat like nobody else he had ever met, like the other half of a gryphon Alcyone hadn't thought he could be. He designed and sewed better after the two of them had talked their troubles through. She tried on as many of his designs as she could — even dresses, which she hated even though she had the perfect legs for dresses.

She told Alcyone that she had been accepted to the Agency, and she was moving. So he packed up his not-successful-yet tailor shop, and he followed.  
Good lord, Al, she told him over coffee — he didn't have to do that.  
Alcyone looked to his scaly hands and no, he wanted to.  
In a quiet instant, his hands disappeared under her tawny paw.  
Her code name was Steele. Great name, she grinned, her fangs shining incandescent. She had never liked her real name, anyway.  
Yeah, Alcyone agreed. It was a great name for a secret agent. He smiled and added that it was a suit name, not a dress name.  
Steele just kept grinning.

Modifying her off-the-rack pantsuit took reams of Agency permissions, and longer tailoring hours than anticipated. Hemming and tucking was one thing — and laying Agency microwiring was quite another. Alcyone studied the directions like he was in college again. He drank too much tea, and ran claws through his feathers until he looked more like a cockatoo, and changed his mind ten times about the suit's lining as he sewed through the night.

Every minute of lost sleep was worth it; Steele wore that suit like it was her own pelt. With a raised brow and a quirk of her tufted ears, she looked like the incarnate of a spy movie, like she had walked right out through the silver screen.  
She turned, admiring herself in the mirror. Perfect, she said, raising both paws to pantomime a gun. She was going to need a few extra changes of clothes, too. Not right away — since this suit was ready for her first mission — but whenever Al could.  
He looked forward to it. He also looked forward to getting some sleep. For now, he hugged Steele tight and wished her luck, and asked her to come home safe.

The suit wasn't complete. Alcyone woke to a realization spread cold across his bleary mind: he had left that one seam unfinished. Part of the suit jacket's lining, near the concealed pocket under the left arm. Alcyone had left it for last, then forgotten. Sloppy of him. No one would see it, not even Steele — but it was still an oversight no good tailor should make.  
There was nothing to be done for it. Alcyone pulled out a ballgown project, something to keep him busy. He wondered how Steele was doing, then started counting out sequins and pearls.

It was nearly three days later that a knock at the door startled him. The caller was a suit-clad Agent — a Great Dane, massive and gentle-eyed and bearing bad news.  
He said Steele made it back from her mission — barely. She was in the hospital. And she wanted to see Alcyone.

It was the worst half hour of his life, that car ride to the Agency med center with bitter dread in his throat. The sight of Steele raw and red, wearing an oxygen mask in a hospital bed, was a nightmare — but then she opened her eyes and said hey, Al and he managed to breathe again.

She told him, in a low voice through a ravaged throat, about the fire. The actual mission was confidential, of course, but her screw-ups were something a best friend needed to hear. Steele obtained the critical data files just like in training; she called for an extraction; everything went fine until an enemy agent caught sight of her.  
It took every trick she knew to get into a warehouse unseen. The enemy agent had one trick up on her: setting the place on fire to flush her out.  
The smoke was thick enough to blind even a cat. If she hadn't used her handkerchief as a thrown distraction, Steele said, she could have held that over her mouth to breathe, but she had, and her suit's sleeve was too thick to breathe through. She reached inside her suit jacket to grasp the data keycard, to destroy it and make her mission less of a failure before she died. But before she found the keycard, her grabbing claws snagged — on a loose seam, from an unfinished edge of the suit's lining.  
Wow, Alcyone breathed. He felt awful about giving her an unfinished suit.  
Good thing he had, Steele said. Starting at that weak point, she was able to rip some fabric loose. She had a scrap of an air filter and the paramedics said that was probably the only reason she made it out. Steele beamed and told him that even when he messed up, he was apparently looking out for her.  
He was glad, Alcyone croaked. He was so grateful.  
Al, she asked? When she recovered, she was still going to need those extra suits.  
Alcyone tried not to glance at her injuries, but the lack of fur tufts on her blistered ears was too much to ignore. She was sure?  
Yeah. This was all she had ever really wanted to do. And she had escaped with the data files intact, so her mission had technically been a success.  
He laced fingers into his crest feathers again. Okay, he sighed. However many suits she needed. God, Steele.  
She grinned with those familiar bright teeth. Well, she said, maybe they were on to something, here. Removable suit lining could be a feature, not a bug.  
He laughed, and his fear poured away with it. Maybe a portion of the jacket lining could be attached with snaps? Or blanket stitching that she could slip a claw into?  
Yeah, Steele said. Quick-release. She liked the blanket stitching idea: it would be less detectable if anyone should examine her clothing.  
With one hand, he grasped at the bedside table for paper and pencil. The other hand he laid on Steele's bandage-thick paw. Whatever she needed, Alcyone said. Where would she like the panel to be?

In that hospital room, they planned for hours. And just like old times, they ordered a pizza.


End file.
